Such a mobile radio device, such a mobile radio network control unit and such a method are known within the context of the mobile radio system UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System).
A UMTS mobile radio system normally has a core network (CN), a mobile radio access network (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network, UTRAN) and also a large number of mobile radio terminals (user equipment, UE). In UMTS, a transmission mode is provided, called FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) mode, which involves separate signal transmission taking place in the uplink direction (uplink direction—also denoted uplink—denotes a signal transmission direction from a mobile radio terminal to a respective base station in the mobile radio access network) and in the downlink direction (downlink direction—also denoted downlink—denotes a signal transmission direction from a respective base station associated with the mobile radio terminal in the mobile radio access network to the mobile radio terminal) through separate allocation of frequencies or frequency ranges.
For the purpose of transmitting data between a mobile radio terminal and a respective base station in a mobile radio cell, UMTS defines an air interface which is divided into three protocol layers. An overview and a detailed description of the air interface protocol layers based on UMTS can be found in 3GPP TS 25.301, Technical Specification, Third Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Radio Interface Protocol Architecture (Release 1999).
One of the three protocol layers of the UMTS air interface is known as the Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol layer. The RRC protocol or the RRC protocol layer is responsible for setting up and clearing down and also for (re)configuring physical channels, transport channels, logical channels, signaling radio bearers and radio bearers, and also for negotiating all parameters of the protocol layers of layer 1 and layer 2 on the basis of UMTS. To this end, the units of the RRC layer in the mobile radio terminal and in the mobile radio network control unit use the signaling radio bearers to interchange appropriate RRC messages, as described in 3GPP TS 25.331, Technical Specification, Third Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; RRC Protocol Specification (Release 1999).
For the purpose of management, generally the management of mobile radio transmission resources in the mobile radio terminal within the context of the uplink packet data transmission, it is known that the mobile radio terminal communicates information about the volume of data traffic in a transport channel to a mobile radio network control unit (Radio Network Controller, RNC) on the plane of the RRC protocol layer. This is done using “measurement report messages”. In this connection, as table 1 below shows, data buffer store filling levels, i.e. the filling level of the data buffer stores in the RLC units, for the transport channel in question are indicated to the currently competent mobile radio network control unit. In other words, this means that in line with 3GPP TS 25.331, Technical Specification, Third Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; RRC Protocol Specification (Release 1999) the mobile radio network control unit is sent notification on the RRC layer plane regarding how many data items to be transmitted there are at present in the buffer stores in the RLC units of the respective mobile radio terminal.
In this connection, mobile radio transmission resources are to be understood, in particular, to mean the transmission power of the mobile radio terminal, the number and also the spreading factor of the allocated CDMA codes.
Table 1 shows an example of such a measurement result list, as described in 3GPP TS 25.331, Technical Specification, Third Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; RRC Protocol Specification (Release 1999):
TABLE 1InformationElement/GroupType andSemanticsnameNeedMultireferencedescriptionTrafficOP1 tovolume<maxRB>measurementresults>RB IdentityMPRB Identity10.3.4.1 6>RLC BufferOPEnumeratedIn bytesPayload(0, 4,And N8, 16,Kbytes = N * 102432, 64,bytes.128, 256,Twelve spare512, 1024,values are2K, 4K,needed.8K, 16K,32K, 64K,128K, 256K,512K, 1024K)>Average ofOPEnumeratedIn bytes And NRLC Buffer(0, 4,Kbytes = N * 1024Payload8, 16,bytes.32, 64,Twelve spare128, 256,values are512, 1024,needed.2K, 4K,8K, 16K,32K, 64K,128K, 256K,512K, 1024K)>Variance ofOPEnumeratedIn bytesRLC Buffer(0, 4,And NPayload8, 16, 32,Kbytes = N * 102464, 128, 256,bytes. Two512, 1024, 2K,spare values4K, 8K, 16K)are needed.
Using this information, the mobile radio network control unit can configure the mobile radio terminal as appropriate, for example in order to restrict or expand the usable transport formats of a mobile radio terminal or to perform handover to another mobile radio cell, reconfiguration of the dedicated physical channels or an RRC state change, particularly from a first RRC state CELL_DCH to a second RRC state CELL_FACH.
The measurement result list shown in Table 1 is thus transmitted from an RRC unit in the mobile radio terminal to the RRC unit in the corresponding mobile radio network control unit, and the respective RRC data buffer store filling level is indicated for each radio bearer (RB).
The standardization committee 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) is currently, as described in 3GPP TS 25.309 Technical Specification, Third Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; FDD Enhanced Uplink; Overall description, stage 2, Release 6, December 2004, working on improving the packet data transmission via dedicated transport channels in the uplink, i.e. for the uplink direction at the UMTS air interface for the FDD mode, with a view to increasing the data throughput and the transmission speed. To achieve better differentiation from the already existing dedicated transport channel DCH, a new dedicated transport channel called enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) has been introduced for this purpose. The fundamental characteristics of this new transport channel include the application of a hybrid automatic repeat request method (HARQ method) based on the N-channel Stop&Wait method, scheduling controlled by the base station, also called NodeB in UMTS, and also frame lengths of less than or equal to 10 ms, particularly of 2 ms and 10 ms.
The N-channel Stop&Wait HARQ method is a transmission protection method in which a mobile radio terminal has a number of N “HARQ processes” configured for it, with an HARQ process representing a respective instance of the Stop&Wait method. For each HARQ process, the data are transmitted to the network and are buffer-stored until the network receives acknowledgement of correctly received data (Acknowledgement, ACK). Otherwise, i.e. if the data have not been received correctly (Negative Acknowledgement, NACK), the data are transmitted to the network again.
NodeB-controlled scheduling is a method in which the scheduling in the mobile radio terminal, i.e. the selection of an appropriate transport format from a set of defined transport formats for the E-DCH transport channel, is controlled such that NodeB can temporarily restrict or expand a mobile radio terminal's use of transport formats from the set of defined transport formats for the E-DCH transport channel on the basis of the traffic situation in the respective radio cell.
Both functions are executed within the MAC protocol layer in the newly provided subprotocol layer, i.e. a “medium access control e/es entity” (subprotocol layer) which is provided, i.e. implemented, both on the terminal and on the network.
By the terminal end, there is no functional separation of the new MAC-e/es subprotocol layer. By contrast, at the network end, functional separation is provided, i.e. the MAC-e entity, in other words the MAC-e unit, is at NodeB (i.e. the UMTS base station) and the MAC-es unit is in the RNC.
An important function of the MAC-e unit in the subscriber terminal, i.e. in the mobile radio terminal, is to perform the scheduling of the data for the uplink on the basis of a transport format selection method, i.e. to select a suitable transport format for the E-DCH transport channel at defined times on the basis of the currently permitted data transmission rate, the priority of the useful data which is to be transmitted and the available transmission power for the E-DCH transport channel.
Correspondingly, an important function of the MAC-e subprotocol layer at NodeB is to control the scheduling in the subscriber terminal. The scheduling needs to be controlled such that NodeB can temporarily restrict or extend the use of transport formats from the set of defined transport formats for the E-DCH transport channel on the basis of the respective traffic situation in the mobile radio cell for which NodeB is responsible and the quality of service (QoS) characteristic of the useful data which are to be transmitted.
So that NodeB can perform efficient scheduling for the subscriber terminals in a mobile radio cell, provision is made for the subscriber terminals to signal appropriate control information, i.e. for example their current data buffer filling levels and transmission power situation to NodeB on the plane of the MAC-e subprotocol layer. For transmitting the control information, there are basically two options, namely firstly as a separate, i.e. independent, control protocol data unit and secondly together with the useful data which are to be transmitted in a protocol data unit, i.e. clearly “piggybacked” in other words packed into a useful data protocol data unit.
On the basis of the conventional devices, transmission of the control information, particularly transmission of the control data of the MAC-e/es subprotocol layer, always has a higher priority in the data link layer over transmission of useful data.